Letters to the Editor
Marie Montgomery
Published Letters: 39 Editor's Choice: 9
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Cool!
[Read the article: How much is moms' work worth? Take 2]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, like, even if I HAVEN'T chosen to pop out a sprog, I can say "Well, my salary from my outside-the-home work is $X, but when you figure in everything I do around the house, like, you know, pet care and vacuuming and laundry and cooking and dishes and weeding and washing the car and surfing the internet ("computer operator," indeed), I'm actually worth $130K+X!"
Idiotic.
You preheated the oven to 375 and baked some tube bread, huh? Well, uhm, OK, if you want to say those 11-13 minutes are worth a few bucks, be my guest, but don't expect big pats on the head for things we all need to do.
Oh, look! I have to stop at the grocery store tonight (Procurement Specialist), then get some prescriptions filled (Medical Technician), then fill up the car (Auto Service Technician), and oh, yeah, I'm going to read Consumer Reports, so call that "Quality Engineer!" Cha-CHING, by the time I'm done with Friday Night Errands, my utterly meaningless metaphoric domestic "earnings" just went up by $518.27!
Make your choices and then have the grace/dignity to live with them.
If you decide to take yourself out of the paid workforce to stay home with your kids while they're in their formative years, that's really fantastic. If you can afford that, you'll reap legitimate emotional, psychological, and spiritual rewards of that choice.
Why shoehorn the rewards of motherhood into some sort of bogus economic model???
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Not a new notion
[Read the article: Fiddling while the earth burns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Same point was made in the 1990 film "Mindwalk," wherein a physicist, a politician, and a poet discuss the overall impossibility of taking the long, holistic view when immediate selfishness is the raison d'etre of politics. They all end up agreeing that earth/humanity are going to Hell in a handbasket, and that, without a benevolent dictatorship, there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it.
That said, I may be the only person I know, literally, who welcomes tax day. I recognize it as the day I pay my fair share for every benefit I receive as a citizen of my country, state, and city. The way I look at it, it's a bargain.
But since the Reagan 80s, GOP strategists have convinced a majority of voters that they are "economic conservatives." Which essentially means "I don't want to pay a dime in taxes, ever, for anything."
Honest to God, this country richly deserves every painful spasm it's about to undergo during the forthcoming death spiral. When "leaders" successfully remove a sense of social contract and community responsibility from the electorate's collective conscience, the ultimate outcome of "Democracy" will inevitably be economic and environmental implosion, driven by selfishness and greed on the part of both voters and politicians who can only see as far ahead as the next election cycle.
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When you figure out how to stop, let me know
[Read the article: I can't stop picking my nose!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've been a chronic eyelash puller (trichotillomania) for 25 years. To the point that I'll be sitting at my desk, or in front of the TV, or at the wheel, and won't even realize my hand has strayed up to my head, and my fingers are methodically plucking the mascara off of my lashes, then toying with the texture of the bare lashes, poking delicately against the pad of the index finger, then attempting to "curl" them by bending them in Just The Right Spot, and then continuing to feel them, to identify clumps of mascara that haven't yet come loose, to work methodically and calmly at removing those clumps, until finally, inevitably, several lashes have come out of the middle of my left eyelid, and I realize this has got to stop, it really does, so I get the mascara out, and I reapply, only this time, there are fewer lashes to apply it to, and I tell myself for the fiftieth time this month that I really MUST STOP this, and I determine I will.
Later (sometimes minutes, sometimes hours) the hand is doing its thing again, and I notice, and I sigh. Fuck. Why do I do this? Is it even me doing this? It doesn't feel like me. Well, yeah, now that I notice myself doing it, of course it's me. But it wasn't me who made a conscious choice to raise the hand to my face and start the picking. I only noticed it when it was already underway...
LW, seriously. If you figure this out, come back. I'd really like to stop my bizarre self-grooming habit, too.
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Marriage = Procreation?
[Read the article: Who's afraid of the big bad gay marriage amendment?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"A marriage normally holds the possibility for procreation. A civil union doesn't. That's what makes a man and a woman necessary for a marriage."
Wow. Somewhere on our marriage license application, my husband and I must have missed the question about how many pieces of crotchfruit we intended to create as a result of our union.
Good thing, too. Cuz, you know, I don't have a viable uterus (yea!)
How about a "Mandatory Breeding" amendment next, James? No marriage allowed until you've squirted out your first child! Wouldn't want any hetero couples getting away with intentional barrenness, now, would we?
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Obviously, snarky writer doesn't really need a bra
[Read the article: Lifting women up, one bra at a time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Feminism isn't about burning your bra.
It's about transcending the limitations those mammaries can impose on an otherwise fit, fine young woman. Find the right bra(s) and you can suddenly participate fully in most of the pursuits of the human. You can saunter without swinging, jog without jiggling, run without rupturing something. The right bras can free us large-breasted women from the crushing weight of our feminine endowments.
Small-breasted women may think this marketing ploy is ludicrous simply because they don't really NEED support. They can't understand what the big deal is because their breast support needs can be met by a snug lycra undershirt.
But take it from a natural 34DD(D)--an attractive, well-designed minimizer really can be a woman's best friend. My stride is completely different when the "girls" aren't wobbling like spastic jello molds, dancing to their own beat in a lousy, cheap, flimsy bra.